


TARDIS Blue

by vcumonkey



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-04 12:03:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1080787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vcumonkey/pseuds/vcumonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TARDIS blue is a shade so often overlooked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	TARDIS Blue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a scene set somewhere during Donna's time (probably after the library). The Doctor had meant to go help Rose with her homework (we know Eleven did), and then this happened.

Prompt: TARDIS Blue  
Word Count: 1,818 (Blimey!)  
Rating: G  
Pairing: Rose/Ten (but really no romance or anything, just my want of a missing scene)  
Author's Notes: This is set sometime when the Doctor is travelling with Donna (and still has his blue suit with the red Chucks).  
This was Brit-picked by my husband, so, thank you, Mark! Otherwise it would have sounded too American :)

 

She was late, again. Jimmy’s shenanigans always made her late, for work, for school, for life…. She tightly pulled her indigo jacket around her as she swiftly but carefully made her way through the patches of ice to Shareen’s and tried not to grumble. Mickey was going to be there. He always hung around them, for as long as she could remember. He always had something to say about her love life, and ever since she started dating Jimmy (and ever since she had left school for Jimmy) he’d always made snide comments on things that he had no business saying. And it wasn’t as if she had really left school for Jimmy; school just wasn’t for her. She would rather hang out with mates looking at blokes than learn about maths and science and history. History was so boring. All it talked about was a load of dead people that did extraordinary things for their time period that were so mundane now. So, no, leaving sixth form really hadn’t been that big of a heartbreak for her.

Still mumbling angrily to herself as she walked down the street, heels clicking on the path, she nearly missed the sound of something. It was unlike anything she had ever heard before; almost like a mixture of wheezing and screeching and scraping. She looked around for the source of the noise and, seeing nothing of note, shrugged and pulled her jacket even tighter around her. There was a chill settling in the night air; December was nearly upon them, and soon it would be time for fairy lights and the smell of pine in a tiny flat in the estates. Christmas was always such a depressing time for Rose, what with her dad being gone and her mum being unhappy, but lately there had been something more troubling. She felt as if there should be more to life, than just living it, going day by day, eating chips and going shopping and working at Henrick’s and listlessly walking around doing nothing but wondering if this was it. She was only nineteen; she should be out there, being important, changing the world. But instead, she was working in a shop, wasting her life with a man who would never love her. She really should just give Mickey a chance. But he could be such an idiot.

Her ears picked up the strange sound again. The screeches and wheezes were punctuated with bangs, growing louder and louder until they culminated in a tremendous crash. She immediately realized the sound had come from an alley down the next street, and she picked up her pace, curious as to what could cause such a racket.

She skidded to a halt at the mouth of the alleyway and stared in disbelief at a whirring light on top of a brilliant blue box. Not just any blue box, but one of those old police boxes from the sixties. Shuffling closer to it, her eyes scanned the area, because surely it was not this ancient and broken thing that had made the noise. The light at the top continued spinning, losing momentum until finally it dimmed, and her eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden drop in light. Just as she decided to leave the strange place, the doors of the police box opened with a creak, and she let out a squeak of surprise as an odd man walked out as if he had been there all along.

Skittering backwards in apprehension, she watched as this bizarre character took in his surroundings. His brown hair tufted upwards, as if he continuously rubbed his fingers through it in concentration. He was wearing a cobalt blue suit with red Converse and a tie to match, and a tan trench coat that swayed against his ankles as he moved from the doorway of the box. She caught a glimpse of an impossible room behind him (impossible because the box simply wasn’t big enough on the inside to fit such an enormous room) before he shut the doors abruptly and turned to face her. She was surprised at the look on his face; it was a mix of adoration and relief, as if he had been searching for her for a long time and was ecstatic to find her at last. It was as if he knew her, which was unnerving to say the least as she had never seen such a man, and would certainly remember if she had.

She took another step back. The blue box seemed to pulsate with energy, and an odd hum touched the edge of her consciousness. The feeling was so foreign, so terrifying, so alien, that it left her gasping, but when the voice withdrew from her mind she was left empty and alone. She bent double, clutching her waist as if it could keep her together, and heard the man make a sound of reproach. She felt him step closer, and a slightly chilled hand touched the back of her neck. “Are you alright?”

Shuddering at the cold touch, she tried to move away, but only succeeded in falling backwards, landing with a soft thump on the icy pavement. She whimpered as she watched those ridiculous red shoes move towards her; then he was kneeling in front of her, placing his hands in front of him in what she guessed was meant to be a calming gesture. “I must have got the temporal placement wrong. I do that, sometimes. I’ve ended up in the Trojan War when I was trying to get to the release of the seventh Harry Potter book.” Noting her confusion, he sighed. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to come here. I tried to pop by before, earlier, I mean, not now, but a few years ago. Well…a few years. Maybe a bit more. Quite a bit, actually. I wanted to—” He broke off, seeming to realize that he was rambling, puzzling her even further and upsetting her in the process.

She glanced back at the blue box as she felt another tug at her consciousness, this time eerily familiar and soothing. There was something strange and dreamlike about this situation, as if it were completely right and not entirely barmy. It was this feeling that made her look back at the man and ask, “Who are you?”

He smiled, as if she had been witty, and replied, “I’m the Doctor.”

Her eyebrow quirked. “The Doctor?”

“Yes, hello!” He wiggled his fingers at her in response.

“Doctor who?”

He laughed outright then, sitting back on his heels in his blue suit and red sand shoes. “Isn’t that the question of the year, eh? Well…more like the question of the decade. Or even the century. Or millennium! The question of time itself, we’ll say, what do you think? That is the question! To be or not to be. No,” he started, looking confused, “no, wait, that’s Shakespeare. Macbeth, wasn’t it? No, no! It was Hamlet! I should know, I helped write the thing. I practically wrote that entire speech!”

She let out a bark of laughter filled with incredulity. “You are a nutter, aren’t you?”

He looked offended at that and stood. “A nutter? I’ll have you know that I have never been accused of being a nutter. Insane, terrifying, mad, yes, but never has anyone called me that!”

She giggled and took the hand he offered, standing up and brushing herself off. This evening had certainly taken a weird turn. One moment she had been leaving her shoddy boyfriend’s flat, on her way to see her mate and annoying admirer, and the next she had stumbled upon this strange man and the beautiful blue box, having a conversation that became crazier the longer it went on. She squinted at the box, and asked the Doctor what it was. “I saw a big room behind it, when you had the doors open. But that’s impossible, isn’t it? It can’t be bigger on the inside, right?”

He laughed again, and whispered quietly, “Spoilers.” A sad look crossed his face at these words, but before she could comment he was speaking again. “That’s my TARDIS. My ship. You’ll get to know her one day, I’m sure.”

Rose studied the box again. It was such a vivid color, a striking blue; TARDIS blue. She couldn’t think of any other word to describe it. The color was unique, and she told the Doctor so. He grinned and looked flattered, as if she had complimented him. “TARDIS blue is actually a shade on the market, now that you mention it. People have cars in the color, clothes, carpets, houses, you name it. You can even get nail polish in that color! It isn’t quite the same as my girl here, but she’s pleased nonetheless.” He gave the box a fond look. “Now! On to business. I need to go to the time to which I had meant to go, and you need to go to wherever it was that you were heading. Which reminds me. What is the year?”

She frowned in confusion. “It’s 2004. Are you drunk? New Year’s isn’t for a month or so. Starting a bit early, aren’t you, mate?”

“Ah, yes. 2004. Near enough December 2004, by the taste in the air. Good year. But you know what? 2005 is much better. Especially for you, Rose Tyler. Especially for you. Now, forget me. And if you ever meet me again in the future, don’t tell me that you met me, because it’ll create some kind of timey-wimey paradox thing that I really don’t feel like handling because they take so much effort to deal with. So pretend you never met me, Rose, and we will be fine.”

He didn’t wait for her to respond, just nodded, turned, and headed back to his blue TARDIS. The doors swung open of their own accord, and she again was able to catch a glimpse of a sparkling periwinkle interior before he closed the door behind him. She watched as the light began to whir again, as the screeching and scraping noises started again, as the box faded, until she realized that she had never told him her name.

Still puzzling over this extremely odd encounter, she raced out of the alleyway, intent on getting to Shareen’s as soon as possible to tell her all about it, when her foot slipped on a particularly icy bit of path. She fell, hard, and spent the rest of the night in a blur of unconsciousness mixed with images of whirring lights, some red and some blue, images of TARDIS blue boxes and red shoes and white nurse coats. When she woke the following morning with a sizeable bruise on her head, she didn’t remember anything about the funny man in the blue suit with a brilliant box that was a color without a suitable name.


End file.
